1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an improved data processing system. In particular, the present invention relates to thermal management in a data processing system. Still more particular, the present invention relates to autonomic policy-based thermal management in a data processing system.
2. Description of Related Art
Management of thermal condition in a data processing system has becoming increasingly more difficult. As the number of processors in the data processing system continues to increase, the power consumed and wattage/heat dissipated by most of these processor chips also increase. The cooling of high frequency or high performance processors also becomes a challenge.
Typically, designers attempt to optimize a system by adjusting specific system characteristics, including increasing or decreasing performance, acoustics (noise), and power dissipation. In addition, depending on the customer need, one or more of the system characteristics may be optimized at the expense of another. For example, if the ambient temperature is cool or if the customer can ignore increased acoustics, the fan speed may be increased to cool the processors, such that the processors may run at a higher frequency to achieve a better performance.
Existing thermal management mechanisms allow designers to make necessary adjustments to system characteristics by hardwiring control algorithms into specific hardware. In this way, designers can monitor certain system characteristic and make adjustments according to the measurements. However, each of these thermal management mechanisms manages separate system characteristic. For example, a processor temperature controller is used only to monitor processor temperature. Thus, each controller component is hardwired to perform a specific task.
In addition, there is little or no communication between system firmware and the specific hardware for thermal management, since the controller components are all implemented in hardware. Furthermore, there is no capability for existing thermal management mechanisms to recognize optimization goals set up by the customer via profiles or system policies. Thus, system characteristics adjustments cannot be customized according to individual user need.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have a method, an apparatus, and computer instructions for autonomic policy-based thermal management in a data processing system. In this way, monitoring and adjustment of system characteristics may be centralized and communications between hardware and system firmware may be increased to achieve policy-based customer goals.